Peter van den Heuvel provided an update on his GO Digital Energy talk of last year when he introduced Shell’s SSIP (Shell Sensor Intelligence Platform). SSIP, Shell’s OSIsoft PI-based real time data infrastructure supports some 15,000 users capturing 12 million events per second. van den Heuvel presented the real time architecture than feeds data into the SSIP. The IIOT remote monitoring service (IRMS) monitors non-critical equipment using a LoRaWAN wireless mesh. Shell’s IoT is claimed to be a low cost feature rich alternative to commercial alternatives and comes close to matching wired connectivity. IoT sensors can be added onto plant items for vibration and temperature monitoring. Today some 2,500 pumps are monitored, providing early detection of potential failure. Hand valve sensors from Aloxy provide situational awareness of line-ups and unintended changes to operating conditions. Plans for the future include low orbit satellite connectivity, more use of PI Asset Framework and Azure, and full replication of PI data into SSIP. Shell is also working towards a ‘multiple cloud strategy’.
Murray-Callander showed how Eigen
has deployed knowledge graph technology to help Lundin’s engineers
study blowdown events on the Norwegian North Sea Edvard Grieg field.
Blowdowns are safety critical operation that automatically reduce
equipment pressure to a safe level in an emergency, triggered
automatically by the safety instrumentation. Analyzing the complex
chain of events that caused a blowdown used to take a week, mostly
spend on data collection. Eigen deployed its Eigen Analytics Platform,
based on Neo4J’s knowledge graph*, added some event detection and a
Python script to automate data gathering, allowing Lundin’s engineers
to spend more time on ‘adding value’. More on Eigen’s EAP here and on its work with Lundin here. Eigen has also worked with Wintershall Dea on a virtual flowmeter application, in collaboration with Turbulent Flux.
* Eigen uses the ‘free’ version of Neo4J’s knowledge graph.
Petteri Vainikka presented Cognite’s industrial knowledge graph described as an ‘open, flexible, and labeled property graph data model that represents your operations’. Cognite puts the ‘average revenue lost’ due to poor business decisions at a surprisingly huge 30%!, all down to bad analytics and bad data quality. While there are ‘abundant’ digital efforts in the pipeline and many successful proofs of concept, few actually make it into production. Even fewer provide a significant return on investment. Cognite is now pushing the ‘data product’ concept. A data product is an ‘owned and governed set of data that is built for a particular purpose’. The relationship between data products, the knowledge graph and Cognite’s Data Fusion flagship is unclear, but we believe that Cognite is adding Neo4J’s graph database and a GraphQL API to CDF.
Osama Hanna, promising to ‘go beyond the buzzwords’, introduced the Microsoft Energy Core, a ‘global initiative and center dedicated to digital transformation in the energy sector’. The MEC includes AI, cloud technologies, the internet of things and now (da..da!) the metaverse. Hanna cited an IDC study* that found one third of the companies studied stored their real time data in the Azure data lake (another third used an in-house PI historian). Hanna presented Microsoft’s generic ‘three horizons’ framework for digital transformation. McKinsey’s three horizons model was introduced some twenty years ago and considers short, medium and long term tactics and strategies for growth. According to Microsoft, ‘digital’ is shortening the horizons and blurring** the boundaries as described in a 2019 HBR paper by Steve Blank. Microsoft’s horizons are shrinking. In 2018 quantum computing was at the H3 ‘evolutionary’ stage. Today QC is H2. The H3 slot is now held by the metaverse. For more on the Microsoft metaverse, we read this blog to learn that ‘Because there will be no single metaverse platform or experience, interoperability is also crucial’.
Of course Meta (Facebook) is going to
open up its Metaverse to all comers and will be doing everything it can
to avoid becoming (another) monopoly! … err maybe not!!
* Hanna’s reference was to the 2019 IDC study. The 2021 Worldwide Industrial IoT Platforms in Manufacturing Vendor Assessment is now available. A snip at $15,000.
** blurring an already nebulous concept can’t be too hard!
Craig Nicol and Keith Hogg from the UK’s Net Zero Technology Centre presented a risk-based well P&A modelling framework developed for the UK National Decommissioning Centre, a partnership between the NZTC and the University of Aberdeen. The framework, published in the SPE Journal in 2021 is now being adapted to carbon capture and storage work.
Jan van den Bremen spoke to Accenture’s technology advocacy in regard to the ‘next waves of innovation’ i.e. quantum computing, extended reality and the metaverse. After which Paul Hodson gave a more prosaic argument in favor of the open subsurface data universe, OSDU. Hodson’s talk involved a balancing act between the perceived advantages of OSDU deployment and the requirement for handholding (presumably from Accenture) on the complex transformation journey that requires a ‘holistic approach’. More from the Accenture publication ‘And the walls came tumbling down’ .
Another balancing act was on offer from Oleg Schkoda (Lummus Digital) as he presented the digital transformation of an unnamed ‘$3 billion petrochemical group’. He warned that ‘most digital transformations fail and do not deliver up to expectations’, that ‘90% of companies ‘lack the skills and capabilities to deliver digital’ and other gotchas. The company’s problems stemmed from a ‘disjointed implementation’ of workflow software from SAP Ariba and others. Poor data management was also an issue and earlier proof of concepts projects failed to scale. ‘Digital enablement’ was identified as a strategic imperative by leadership. Lummus’ solution included the establishment of a joint ‘AI Factory’ embedded in the client’s organization. This has now applied a DevOps/MVP approach to application development to address a large spectrum of use cases. The platform deployed is based on TCG* Digital’s Mcube advanced analytics and machine learning stack.
* Lummus Digital was formed when two companies (Lummus and TCG Digital) of The Chatterjee Group merged in 2020.
Francois Haynes introduced Technip Energies’ ‘Wise’ digital twin (as in ‘working intelligently and sustainably for better energy’). Yesterday’s ‘digitalization’ initiatives are over! Today’s facilities benefit from the ‘decarbonized digitalization’, heralded by the ‘fourth industrial revolution’. More prosaically, the digital twin allows for cost comparisons of different engineering concepts, feasibility studies that make for carbon-conscious choices and finally, a single source of truth for project continuity. Examples of the Wise DT include the automatic extraction of a fire proofing zone from the 3D model. Low-carbon and safer operations are enabled by a collaborative and immersive experience for training and reviews.
It’s curious that Haynes’ slide deck
makes no reference to the CFIHOS, initiative for, inter alia, ‘project
continuity’ as Technip has put quite some effort into the initiative.
Tatiana Moguchaya presented Earth Science Analytics’ flagship EarthNET
application an ‘OSDU-ready’ platform for earth science data.
Moguchaya’s presentation suggested considerable scope expansion for
EarthNET into the fields of robotics, the digital twin and more. ESA is
backed by Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures.
Alfonso Garcia from the Repsol Technology Lab has been investigating possible use cases for robotics in oil and gas. These include the use of drones to perform visual inspections of facilities such as tank farms and the building of digital damage and corrosion models. Repsol has also been working with partner Technalia on ‘indoor-outdoor logistics’ i.e. a self driving cart for shipping small items. Technalia is a member of the EU-backed Robott-Net R&D consortium that offers free advice on industrial robotics in the EU.
Amit Singh outlined three of Schlumberger’s initiatives as a ‘leading oilfield services company’. First is Delfi, Schlumberger’s ‘cognitive’ E&P environment, now billed as ‘powered by OSDU’ (although the small print is rather nuanced). Next up is Agora, a spin-out company that specializes in oil and gas edge computing. And also the Innovation Factori, a collection of world-wide R&D hubs working on AI and ML applications for energy engineering processes. Schlumberger has teamed with Microsoft to offer a ‘fully managed’ implementation of the OSDU platform. For more on Agora read the 2020 SPE paper ‘Edge Computing: A Powerful and Agile Platform for Digital Transformation in Oilfield Management’.
Hiroyuki Koito presented JGC’s Auto Plot Pathfinder an automated design system that provides recommended plant floor plan options along with a quantitative evaluation for project feasibility. The tool is said to have proved a key milestone in JGC’s digital transformation and aligns the EPC’s front end engineering with customers’ requirements. Again, no mention of CFIHOS although JGC has been a member since 2019.
Mohammed Tomehy reprised Saudi Aramco’s IMOMS (Integrated Manufacturing Operations Management System). The solution is currently deployed at four refineries in the Kingdom with future expansion to other facilities and joint venture operations. Despite being announced as ‘commercially available’ in 2019, in 2022, Tomehy appears to be speaking of IMOMS in the future tense.
James Wardrop’s presented PipelineSentry’s eponymous pipeline data manager solution. PipelineSentry is work in progress. Wardrop is seeking a pipeline operator to sponsor its further development from MVP to operational product.
Nicolas Morency showed how Prevu3D converts large point cloud data sets into a precise 3D mesh that can be visualized, manipulated and shared with key stakeholders.
Jarbas Silva presented Petrobras’ strategic plan for 2022-2026 with key players SAP, Deloitte and Microsoft. The plan includes the use of Kairos for ‘IT transformation’.
Leed de Graf introduced his start-up Cuurios stating that data ‘should not be center stage if you want to improve your business’. It’s a better idea to analyze your workflows first and then look for relevant data to improve operations. The Cuurios software platform ‘optimizes workflows for asset rich businesses’.
The next GO Digital Energy Conference will be held from the 16th to 17th May 2023.
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